ben brantley’s blog

Here’s two things I really like:

1. The Weather Underground. I especially like their WunderMap that integrates live data from all the personal weather stations that are linked to the site. This is incredibly helpful for getting accurate weather and trending data when you live in a place like Nederland, because the big boy weather forecasts are always for larger cities (or more generic “zone forecasts”), all of which are at least 3,000 feet lower in elevation and many times experiencing totally different weather. On this site, I can punch in my zip code and instantly see a map with current temperature, wind, and precip values for houses and scientific stations all over the mountains.

Also, they have the very best radar feeds and integration. You can pick ANY of the raw feeds (for different angles, distances, and measurement types) and get several frames of animation, all for free. And if you pay them a little they’ll let you download longer sequences.

Check it out.

2. My Briggs & Riley rollaboard. My job causes me to subject my travel bag to a complete beating. Since I fly on average 20 to 40 times more than the average person, I also don’t expect bags to last nearly as long, either. When I started, four years ago, I still had my nice Samsonite rollaboard that I got as a gift in college. It treated me nicely for another year before it was done for. At that time, I stayed true to Colorado and bought another Samsonite, this time with “spinners.” Spinner bags have four wheels (instead of two) that stick out below the bag and that are pivoting, so you can keep your bag standing upright and just coast it along the floor. This works REALLY well on smooth marble surfaces and REALLY poorly on plush carpets and uneven surfaces. It still has a regular handle, so you can flip it onto two wheels and gain stability in exchange for having to hold some weight.

Unfortunately, I found the new Samsonite severely lacking in quality. Stuff started falling apart (and off) after no more than a few months. The bears in the wheels filled up with sand and grit and started sounding like a commercial-grade rock tumbler everywhere I wheeled it. The last straw was when the integrity of the structure of the bag started to give on one of the bottom corners where a spinner wheel is attached. Now the thing not only struggled to go through unsmooth areas, but it also bogged down on one corner at all times.

Enough is enough, I decided, and I followed the recommendation of one of my coworkers to try a Briggs & Riley. The other popular, expensive manufacturer of high end bags is Tumi, but my reading online indicated that the B&R were shorter on style and longer on substance (and quality, and warranty). After considerable debate, I ended up getting the Baseline 22″ expandable model. It’s about as plain-looking a bag as you can get, but it’s built like a tank, and it has an incredible strength-to-weight ratio. It also doesn’t have those obnoxious spinners. The parts that hold the collapsing handle are built onto the outside of the bag, so the inside is a perfect rectangular prism of storage goodness. I can fit about four days of business wear into it at normal dimensions and maybe 8 or 9 days of clothes on the rare occasion where I have to expand it. And in the latter case, it will still fit in most overhead bins.

It’s one of those things you kind of vomit at the expense of, but then it starts paying dividends when you realize how nice it is to have a quality piece of equipment that you can count on — and that’s really what a travel bag is for a professional traveler. I don’t plan to become a review-writer for my night job, but as they like to say: Highly Recommended.

Let’s say you work at a desk in a dry place. And, say you keep some sticks of lip balm handy at all times on the desk, right by your computer. Well, here’s my tip: don’t go to the store and buy some glue sticks and store them right next to your Chap-Sticks. They’re almost the same size and shape, but the on-lip experience is considerably different.

There ya go.

Kids, I’m moving up in the world. I’m no longer just Web 1.0, I’ve made it to Web 1.5. Today, with Kathy’s help, I shot a video in 1080p, downrendered it to 720p, edited it in iMovie HD (note cool transitions and titling), reencoded it to YouTube’s preferred format, made a YouTube account, spent 2 hours uploading it on our slow internet connection, and then I even figured out how to put it in my blog. Sorry for those of you are still in Web 0.5 and have even crummier internet connections than I.

Even if you can’t see the video, it’s incredible how much fur Zamboni is generated during this, her first true adult season of “blowing coat.” From reports on the internet, newfs get this a couple times a year. Now, normally Zamba has a lot of fur. She’s not a slobber-puss like most of her breed, but she creates her fair share of the black floaties. However, this week, I’ve been taking her outside and raking her out almost every day, and every day we’re generating almost a half a deck surface full of blobs of fur.

The stuff literally just pulls out with the slightest fingered grasp of it. You almost feel bad, as if you’re taking the last of it and she’ll be bald soon or she’s on chemo or something. But, no, this is totally standard. Mounds and mounds and mounds of fur. It makes her look really shaggy and unkempt when it loosens so fast, so I’m going to pledge to try to stay on top of it at least for this next week while I’m still home. Hopefully the whole thing will only last another few days. Yeesh.

I probably get a notice of a class action lawsuit every month or two, as I bet most of us do. After discovering that the first 50 out of 50 offers I received generally would result in an average compensation worth about -$15 (after the time and postage I would waste to join the class, receive the award, and apply it in some way), I’ve gotten to where I just chuck them immediately. But one that I received last week for a suit against Costco caught my eye.

You see, I recently had a negative experience with this most consumer-friendly of retailers. We like Costco a lot — their merchandise is generally good, reasonably priced, and very reasonably priced once you factor in the time and expense of obtaining merchandise at more frequent intervals. For mountain dwellers who do not have easy access to basic household goods “on the way home from work,” it makes even more sense to buy things in bulk and store them. Plus, Costco has an incredibly generous return policy — even on the membership itself: satisfiaction guaranteed, no questions asked, no matter how long it’s been since you purchased the thing.

So it was with some surprise that, earlier this year, I called to check on our membership in anticipation of a visit. Since we don’t go often, I’ve found myself able to arbitrage our membership windows in a way that slightly extends the value. For example, let’s say you purchased a membership on January 1, 2009. You’d be allowed into the store to buy stuff for all of 2009. But, because we only visit every three or so months, if I can time my last visit for 2009 such that I don’t need to return until March or April of 2010, I can “get” 15 months of utility for the price of 12.

I’m going from memory, but here’s how my conversation earlier this year went:

“Yes, hello, I would like to check on the status of my membership. Could you remind me when it expired?”

“One moment, please. Ah, it expired back in November.”

“Great, so now that it’s February, can I just come in and sign up again?”

“Yes sir, you can, but your membership will begin in November of last year.”

“Umm, so, wait a minute. That means that I’m buying something for the past?”

“Yes sir, it’s just like a gym membership, it renews each year when you renew.”

“Umm, well, the last time I had a gym membership, if I stopped going in November and started again in February, I’d get a new one-year membership starting in February.”

Slight pause, and then she says, “that’s just the way we do it, sir.”

“Well, what if I walk in and demand a brand new membership?”

“We’ll look it up by your name and find your existing, expired membership.”

“Well, how do you know I’m the same Ben Brantley?”

“We do it by your address.”

“What if I give you a different address?”

Sounding slightly exasperated, but not nearly as exasperated as I was feeling at the moment, “If you really want to, you can just sign up for a new membership under a new name.”

“Okay, thank you.”

You can probably guess where my story is going, now. The class action lawsuit is on behalf of anyone who has experienced precisely this unfair “backdating” of a membership that can’t possibly have been used. I guess some other people got annoyed enough by this stupid idea that they went to the hassle of making a case in court for it. Good for them.

By the way, I didn’t sign up to join the class. It’s victory enough that Costco has put an end to that silly scheme.

This has probably been my favorite article I’ve read this year. It’s lengthy, like most of the stories in the NYT Magazine, but well worth it.

In other news, we’ve returned from our travel adventures — and I do mean travel adventures! — in Costa Rica, and I will start populating my entries with some imagery gleaned from the trip right away. After honeymooning there a few eons ago and losing our camera to humidity, it was a blessing to have a room with air conditioning (= humidity management!) and several backup cameras along for the ride this time. And, even though I didn’t really venture much more than a few hundred feet from our hotel door for my very casual shoots this time, I found myself with a much higher keep rate than usual: almost one out of four. It’s possible that means I just did a better job photographing the sights, or maybe I’m just lowering my standards.

This is the first time I’ve been online at 35,000 feet, so I thought I’d write a blog post to commemorate the event. We’re currently flying in circles 200 miles from Dallas because everything is stopped there for some big storms. Not only that, but we left Denver 3 hours late. The only saving grace is that the storm might be so bad that it delays our international connection long enough to make it. Otherwise we’ll be getting to Costa Rica at least one day later than planned.

They price the internet based on the length of flight, so I guess I can also feel good about getting more than my 7 dollars’ worth of air time!